


what you can't learn from skin mags

by ficfucker



Category: The Outsiders - All Media Types, The Outsiders - S. E. Hinton
Genre: Happy Ending, Internalized Homophobia, Love Confessions, M/M, Period-Typical Homophobia, Pining, Sharing a Bed, gay!johnny and bi!dally, soda and steve is only implied
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-18
Updated: 2019-10-18
Packaged: 2020-12-22 20:06:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,254
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21082343
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ficfucker/pseuds/ficfucker
Summary: what do you do when you're a hood in love with the meanest greaser around?





	what you can't learn from skin mags

**Author's Note:**

> sorry if OOC i read the outsiders in 8th grade and now my brother who is in 8th grade has read it... he watched the movie with me and it sparked my love of the gang all over again

They’re down by the train tracks because Dally likes to throw rocks at the parked train cars. Johnny’s with him because he ain’t got anywhere else to be. 

“You rodeo-in’ tonight?” Johnny asks once Dallas has sat back down, arm tight from throwing at least 2 dozen fist-sized rocks that made the metal cars clang like church bells. 

“Uhuh. Need the money bad.” He sifts through the pebbles, looking for something else to toss. He comes up with a corner chunk of brick, hefts it in his palm. 

“Gonna be headed to Buck’s soon then? I’ll head to Pony’s place or somethin’ if yer gonna-”

“Cool it, man. I still got hours before I gotta jet.” Dallas gets to his feet and chucks the brick piece, knicks the very edge of a rusting car, then plops back down, runs his hands through the pebbles again. 

Johnny nods, watches Dally. He hates to feel like a burden, tailing Dallas like his goddamn shadow these days, Ponyboy busy with track and Two-Bit getting into the type of trouble Johnny’s not looking for. For whatever reason, Dallas has cooled some, only swiping from stores if he knows for sure he won’t get caught, not bothering the Soc girls when he sees them at the movies. Even kids he’s been leaving alone, walks right passed them on the street if they’re outside playing jacks. It’s an odd shift: Dallas only looking to smoke or eat while Two-Bit is the one nosing for the law, pulling up skirts and getting blackout drunk.

No one really compares to Dallas at his worst, though, not even a randy Two-Bit with a fat bottle of whiskey. 

“Speakin-a, we got time, I reckon we could hit the diner if you’re hungry,” Dallas offers. He’s come up empty finding any rocks that tickle his fancy for throwing. He can’t sit still long. If he’s done with his rock-throwing, that means they’ll move on somewhere else: bum around a corner, hit the lot, maybe bother the Curtis residence until Darry shoos them out so Pony can study. 

Johnny shrugs. “I’m not too hungry, Dal. I’m sure the Curtis boys will have sandwiches or somethin’ later, give me one. ‘Sides, I ain’t got any money to pay ya for it.” 

Dallas’ brows go together, mouth an unamused flat line. “Who said anything about paying me?” 

Johnny scoffs, shakes his head. “You was just talking about how you need the rodeo money, man! How do you figure we can hit the diner when you’re talkin’ like you’re broke?”

Dallas barks a laugh and grabs Johnny by the shoulder, pulling him to his chest to give him an aggressive noogie, knuckles digging bluntly into his scalp. “You worry when I say worry, Johnnycake. Scram when I say scram. Cool it with everything else.” He lets Johnny loose, who grumbles about his hair, and they both get to their feet. 

“Easier said than done,” Johnny mutters. 

“Don’t get wise on me,” Dallas warns. There’s no heat to his voice, no menace, and Johnny bites back a smile. 

There’s something special in knowing such a cruel hood has a soft spot for you. Big city fightin’ Dallas Winston looking out for little kicked pup Johnny Cade. It makes Johnny feel like he’s around a lion. It makes him feel like he’s tamed a wild beast who bites off the fingers of any other person who tries to get close. There’s magic in that. 

  
  


* * *

  
  
  
  


The diner isn’t too busy when they get in. They sit across from each other in the big, red vinyl booth seats and Johnny tries to be polite with his order, aiming for just a coke, maybe one of those red and white checkered paper boats of fries, but Dallas rolls his eyes and insists he gets more. They both get burgers and thick-cut steak fries, Johnny getting a strawberry shake and Dally ordering chocolate. 

“Lord,” Johnny breathes when the waitress brings it over to them with a beaming smile. 

Dallas looks proud, smug even when he sips his milkshake, watching Johnny try to fit a wedge of burger into his small mouth. “Knew you was hungry,” he comments quietly. 

Johnny’s got about 10 fries stuffed into his face so he has to chew a while and swallow before saying, “Shuddup, Dal.” 

Dallas grins and grabs a handful of straws, starts stripping them of their paper to blow them at Johnny who laughs, tells him to cut it out. They’ve been asked to leave for lesser things and Johnny doesn’t want to be told to get in the middle of something like this. 

After a minute, straws all naked and discarded to the side of the table, Dally offers Johnny a sip of his shake, so he leans across, wraps his lips around the straw. He nods, hums approvingly. Johnny offers out his in return and Dallas grins, takes a long drag, little bead of too-pink pink catching on his bottom lip. 

It makes Johnny’s stomach quiver. 

Dallas finishes his burger quicker than Johnny just because he’s got a bigger mouth and he sits around sucking on what’s left his milkshake, a runny chocolate mix, watching Johnny pick through the fries for the crispest ones. “Finish up,” Dally pushes. 

“I’m tryin’.” Johnny gulps down some strawberry shake, forces more burger into his mouth. Outside of Darry cooking them fried chicken one lucky night about 4 months back, Johnny can’t remember the last time he’s had a hot meal like this. 

The waitress swoops back around with their check, leaving it on the table nearest to Dallas, still sporting that curled smile of hers, and Dally kicks Johnny under the table, says harshly, “Finish up, Johnny.” 

Johnny looks up, confused-like, and wipes his mouth on a napkin. He peeks at the bill then fishes around in his dirty jeans, saying, “I probably got a few to help cover,” but Dally shakes his head wildly. He grabs Johnny by the wrist and yanks him out of his seat, drags him a few steps before Johnny gets his head together enough to realize they’re dashing without paying, and they leg out of there, someone behind the counter in the kitchen calling after them. 

They run for longer than they need to, Johnny almost running straight into a family with a little girl in a pink dress in the parking lot, and when they reach the park, Dally is all out of breath, his face red, and he’s laughing like they’ve just pulled a good joke. 

“Man, those chicks should know better by now,” he wheezes. He climbs up on the monkey bars, dangles himself upside down so his hair flops, his jacket hanging around him like spread bat wings. “I ain’t never paid for a meal there once.” 

Johnny snorts, climbs up to Dally, watches him dangle. His shirt comes loose a minute later, Dally’s face all gorged with rushing blood, but Johnny’s focused on the pale expanse of stomach that’s been exposed, nearly milk-white with just a fine crop of hair so blond it’s nearly translucent. Dally’s stomach is toned, too, little beads of muscle. 

Johnny wonders if he’ll ever be broad-shouldered and lean like that, stronger arms, filling out like Dally is beginning to. He pretends that’s why he was staring when Dally rights himself, straddling the metal bars while he looks around in his jacket for a cigarette. 

He knows, though, the reason why he looks at Dallas in ways different from everyone else in the gang. 

Sometimes, when his parents have finished their catfighting and his mother has nursed enough alcohol into her system to be out cold, he sneaks one of his dad’s skin mags, all tucked into his jacket like carrying heat that’ll get him put away for the next century, and looks at in the bathroom. Only room with a lock. He flips through the glossy pages, fingers trailing down the images of the faceless women, but it never catches. His mind always wanders to Dally and he’s left with that terrible energy pulsing in his gut. 

No one’s told him it’s wrong. It’s just instinctual. Johnny’s never seen two men kissing. Dallas busts heads if you so much as give him the wrong look at the wrong time, so Johnny has no plans to go up to him and say outright, “Sometimes, late at night when I ain’t got my dad caning me like a pup, I think about necking with you, Dallas Winston, what do you think of that?” 

Dallas locates a smoke and sticks it between his lips, asks Johnny if he’s got a match. “Must’ve left my lighter at Buck’s,” he explains. 

Johnny nods and pats around his jacket, finds his little paper carton of matches in an inside pocket. He pulls a match out and strikes it, holds it up to Dally’s cig, one hand cupped around it so the wind doesn’t put it out. Their faces get closer than need be, both illuminated a dull orange before Johnny pulls away and shakes the match out, flicks it to the ground. 

“Thanks, man,” Dally mutters, taking big puffs. 

Johnny wants to thank him, too, for always being around, for conning him a good meal, for being the big bad wolf that’ll stomp any Soc that steps to him, but it makes Johnny sad, too, considering all those things, so he just smiles and nods. 

Dally smokes and Johnny watches the cars as they roll past. Some real tuff ones out. It keeps him distracted a while, not focusing so hard on how badly he wants Dally to look over at him softly, offer a gesture wordlessly that means the world to him. It could be as simple as brushing pinkies. It could be as simple as Dallas glancing over and giving Johnny a knowing nod.

Johnny decides not to think about it. 

  
  
  


* * *

  
  
  
  
  


Johnny gets too nerved up at Buck’s alone to calm down and drowse off on the bed. Dallas had locked the door before heading out and given Johnny his lucky switch, told him if anyone gives him trouble to just stay cool and explain that he’s close with Dal. Some party is bumping downstairs, loud, obnoxious country music blaring, and it puts him on edge. He can’t stand being by himself at Buck’s, feels like someone juiced is gonna stumble in and demand the room for rooting.

Knowing himself, Johnny would probably be too stunned to say no and sulk off to the parking lot, have hell to pay when Dallas got back from riding. 

Johnny said he could meet Dally tomorrow, kick it at the lot for the night or see if Ponyboy would let him have the couch, but Dallas was hellbent on knowing Johnny was safe at Buck’s when he got back. 

“I don’t need to be worried sick like a bastard father, okay? Soc sees you out alone and you’re fuckin’ gone. Sit quiet and if Buck comes in, say you’re with me, he’ll let you be,” he’d said when Johnny had gone to argue.

No one bothers him the whole night, not even a knock to see if the room is taken. Johnny sits on the bed and reads to stay up. Pony’s lent him a book, Of Mice and Men, though Pony had warned him it’s got a sad ending, so Johnny reads about half before setting it down and fidgeting, waiting for Dally to get back. He fiddles with his jacket, thumbing at the worn buttons, then figures a smoke will calm him some and he cracks the one small window, puffs out into the cool night air. 

  
  
  


* * *

  
  
  
  


It’s late when Dally gets back. Johnny had tried his best to stay up, but he must’ve finally sagged into sleep at some point because he’s curled up on the bed with his shoes and jeans still on when Dally comes in, flicks on a light. He instinctively curls his hand down between the mattress and the wall, reaches for Dally’s switch before he realizes who it is, standing in the doorway. There’s no music coming from below, which makes Johnny figure it’s already tomorrow, midnight at least, if not 1 am or later.

He squints in the low, yellow glow, watches Dallas rummage around for a clean towel in the drawers of the dresser, back to Johnny, his jacket all caked with mud, boots about the same. Johnny can smell him from where he is: horses and smoke. 

He finds what he’s looking for and goes into the bathroom, turns on the showerhead. It almost makes Johnny blush, fetaled on the mattress, so close to Dallas Winston, who’s naked on the other side of the door that’s separating them. 

Dallas comes back into the room maybe 10 minutes later and Johnny’s still awake, though he closes his eyes, pretends to be asleep. Dally’s in just his white underwear, hair dripping wet, made darker from the water, but still light as whipped buttercream. 

He must really think Johnny is out, because he undoes his laces for him, pulls his tennis shoes off and drops them to the floor, then works on his jeans. 

Johnny acts like he’s just stirred, cracks an eye open, and asks, “Dal?”

“Didn’t mean to wake ya. Fell asleep with your shoes on and everythin’.” 

“Mm. Musta fell asleep waitin’ for you to get back.” 

Dallas gets Johnny’s pants off and casts a sheet over him, jeans tossed on top of Johnny’s shoes by the bed. Dally turns out the light. He slumps down next to Johnny, facing away from each other, and Dallas exhales sharply, groans when he shifts a certain way. 

“You alright?” Johnny asks quietly in the darkness. 

“Nasty fall. Lost focus and whup- slipped bad.” 

Johnny wants to cuss him out for being stupid like that, color him a string of curses as good as a rainbow, but he knows Dallas would just listen till he’s done then laugh right in his face. Instead, he asks, “Needa be taped?”

“Nah. I poked around at my ribs. Nothin’ outta place.” 

Johnny hums and they both go silent. 

  
  
  


* * *

  
  
  
  


Dallas is up before Johnny the next morning, pulling on some better blue jeans, wrestling into a shirt, and Johnny watches him silently a moment before he sits up and yawns, makes his awakeness known. 

"Mornin', Johnnycake." 

"Mornin', Dal." He runs a hand through his hair, which needs a new greasing, and sits, watching Dallas as he swats at his jacket, puffs of light brown, now-dried mud flaking off in thick plumes. 

“Wanna see if the DQ is open? I got money to pay this time,” Dallas offers. He’s fiddling with his belt. 

Johnny’s still undressed besides his underwear and his shirt so he leaps up and starts yanking on his jeans. “Sure,” he agrees. He doesn’t care what Dally wants to do: as long as he doesn’t have to go home to his dad, he’ll follow Dally anywhere. He gets the switch from between the mattress and the wall, slips it back into his jacket pocket. He gets Pony’s copy of Mice and Men, too, shoves it into his other jacket pocket, where it just barely fits. 

They go down the stairs, careful not to step on any arms hanging out from drunk girls passed out on the floor, avoiding tripping over greasers and rodeo guys slumped over. Dallas tells Johnny wait on the steps, so he does, while Dally goes looking for Buck, asking to borrow his car. Johnny walks just about everywhere, but he figures Dallas’ legs are stiff from riding, probably sore all over, and Johnny’s not looking to refuse a ride. 

Dallas comes out a few minutes later, keys jangling between his fingers, and he’s grinning like a fool. “Bird is all ours,” he announces. He looks downright giddy, and they go down the steps together, slide into the car. 

“This car’s tuff,” Johnny comments quietly. 

Dairy Queen is already hopping by the time they get there, young girls and whole families out for a Saturday ice cream and just rolling into the parking lot has Johnny on edge. Dallas has been weirdly well behaved lately, but every streak comes to an end. And Dally can’t stand kids. 

Especially when they’re in the way of him and a hot fudge sundae.

“I’ll go up to the window,” Dallas says. “Keep an eye on this thing.” 

Johnny nods and watches Dally file into line, hands stuffed into his pockets, jacket still dark with patches of dried mud. He looks tuff standing there, white-blond hair kicking out at the nape of his neck, long legs bent at an impatient angle. Johnny can’t see his face, but he figures Dally is scowling, squinted off to the side like he’s casing the place, no focus on a single person in particular. 

Dallas advances, bumps two kids out of line with his hip, muttering something down to them when they protest. Johnny winces. He knows things are about to get messy. 

“Listen, lady, I just want two sundaes, how damn difficult is that to understand?” Dally’s voice carries, rising fiercely when whoever his server is says something he doesn’t like. “You speak English? King’s English? You know, Ingles? Make with the ice cream then, girly, I don’t have all day, alright.” 

An older man goes to say something to Dallas and Johnny turns away, almost cowering in the seats of Thunderbird. He’s glad he’s the one with the switch. Dallas is cruel enough to pull it on a father, get the cops called down to the Dairy Queen first thing on a Saturday. 

Dallas comes back over some minutes later, carrying two sundaes, peanuts and fudge and everything, but his face is twisted harshlike, agitated. “Here,” he says, getting in and passing Johnny his. “Let’s fuckin’ jet, man, I can’t  _ stand _ places like these.” 

Johnny isn’t going to ask Dally what he means by that. 

  
  
  


* * *

  
  
  
  


“Chick behind the counter was some gal that knows Sylvia,” Dallas says thickly, tongue painted white with vanilla ice cream. “And soon as she saw me she went, ‘Oh, Dallas Winston, I know who  _ you _ are’ and starts cluckin’ like a mad hen.” He laughs dryly, shakes his head. “Thought it was her  _ job _ to serve. I got a shirt and shoes, don’t I?” 

They’re on some back road that Dally knows of, secluded enough that they’ve killed the engine with no apparent fear of the cops coming after them for loitering or trespassing. 

Johnny doesn’t say anything back, just keeps scooping melting ice cream into his mouth. 

“I’m tellin’ ya: all broads are the same. Either ravin’ or cryin’.” He looks down at his sogging ice cream and opens his door, lobs the bowl out into the field they’re by. It makes Johnny feel bad. He doesn’t like littering. 

“I wouldn’t know much about it,” Johnny comments. Most he’s done is dance with some girl at a school function when he was 13, but that’s little kid stuff. He knows Dally means necking and going together. Besides the skin mag stuff, Johnny really doesn’t know anything. 

Dally hums, like he’s amused and watches Johnny finish his sundae. “You really never been with a girl?”

Johnny starts going red despite himself and he shakes his head. He shouldn’t be embarrassed in front of Dally. There will be teasing of course, but if Johnny so much as frowned too hard, got within a mile of crying, Dallas would clam up tight and never say boo about girls to him again. 

“What? Just ain’t interested in ‘em?” 

Johnny gives Dallas a startled look, heart catching in his throat thinking Dally has seen the way he looks at him, but Dally’s face is neutral and curious, not accusatory. “No. Uh. Not too many grease girls. And I don’t wanna be… Girls just make a gang complicated. Gang’s more important.” 

Dallas nods and looks out the window. “Guess you got the right idea about that,” he says quietly. 

It feels like the perfect time to confess. Johnny could come right out and say it, say what he’s been thinking of Dallas Winston for too long a time now. He opens his mouth to speak but Dallas turns to look at him before any words can be spoken and he slaps his mouth shut, drops his eyes to his lap. 

“What?” Dallas asks. 

“Nothin’. Just- Thanks for the sundae, Dal.” 

Dally looks at Johnny, weird and silent, for a long time, his blue eyes distant but intense. It makes Johnny want to squirm away, slink down in his seat. 

Eventually, Dallas starts the car and says, “Don’t mention it.” 

  
  
  


* * *

  
  
  


Johnny doesn’t see Dally for 3 days after that. Dally says he’s got shit to do with Buck back at the house, so Johnny gets dropped off at the Curtis place and finds Pony reading on the couch, Steve and Soda and Two-Bit playing cards in the kitchen. Johnny asks if he can bum around for the day and Ponyboy gives him a smile and a nod, scoots over on the couch to make room. 

He spends the next two nights with them. Darry lets him have the couch, even brings him an extra blanket and pillow. He goes to school Monday and returns back with Ponyboy, does the dishes after supper because he wants to pitch in somehow. 

By Tuesday, he figures he should check in with his parents, not that they give a hoot about him, but he feels obligated anyhow, and he leaves after Darry lets him, insisting he stay for dinner. Like always, there’s fighting that can be heard 4 houses away so Johnny sneaks in the back door to get a fresh pair of jeans and a new shirt, change his socks. He slinks right out again, undetected, and beats it to the lot. 

So much for checking in. Johnny’s not looking to get in the crossfires, wind up with a busted lip or crushed fingers.

The lot’s empty when he gets there so he gathers some twigs and dry leaves, builds a small fire to curl around before he dozes off. He sits cross-legged and reads of Mice and Men, smokes the last cigarette of his pack, which has gone stale, tastes like hay that’s been watered down with piss. 

Even while reading he keeps one eye above the pages, alert in case a Soc comes along and decides Johnny is the perfect prey to pick on. 

And it’s smart of him, too, because a figure starts slinking up in the shadows and Johnny reaches for Dally’s switch, clicks it open in a silver flash, reflecting yellow and orange from the fire. 

Laughter. “Lord Almighty, man, you plannin’ to cut me with my own blade?” 

Johnny’s shoulders go down. “Jesus, Dallas, you could scare a greaser to death sneakin’ up like that.” 

Dally grins wider, clearly amused with himself. “Didn’t look it from where I’m standin’. Yer fit to carve me like a turkey.” 

Johnny snorts a laugh and closes the switch, hands it over to Dallas who tucks it into the front pocket of his jeans. “Thought maybe you was Two-Bit tryin’ to rile me.” 

“Nah. I was gonna swipe some smokes when I uh, saw the little campfire you got goin’ and figured it was you out here.” 

Johnny nods, puts his book back into his jacket pocket. 

“You uh, what? Plannin’ to spend the night here?” 

Johnny half-shrugs and watches as Dally squats down next to the small fire, holds his hands out to catch the heat. “Yeah, I mean, I didn’t want Darry to think I was moochin’ of them and the ‘rents are goin’ at it like always.” 

Dally nods, contemplative and shit, then says, “Well, come back with me. Buck don’t care who I have over.” 

It’s weird how caring Dallas has been lately, taking Johnny places and letting him stay the night. It’s nothing surreal, but there’s been a clear shift: Dallas calming with his troublemaking and keeping sure that Johnny is safe and fed. It takes a lot for Dallas to care about much. Pony has speculated more than once that Dallas doesn’t care about anything at all, not even if he’s alive himself. 

Johnny agrees and Dallas stomps out the fire, unzips his fly to piss on the smolder to ensure it’s good and dead. Dally doesn’t have Buck’s car for the night, so they walk it, stopping at a corner store where Johnny asks about gum prices to distract the clerk while Dally sharks around for what he wants. It works and Johnny buys a pack of gum so the guy doesn’t get suspicious of them and they come away with two cartons of cigarettes, a roll of bandaging tape, a bent Hershey’s bar, and a little silver can opener, the kind you take on camping trips. 

They both light up and split the chocolate, make it back to Buck’s place before the beer blast really gets roaring, head up the stairs, and into Dally’s room like a practiced ritual. In this case, it kind of is.

Dally’s got a radio now, a new addition since Johnny has been up, a small, wood-cased thing that sits on top of the dresser, and he flicks it on, tunes it to the first clear station. Something by The Honeycombs plays through, a song Johnny’s heard before once or twice, and from the bed, Johnny can feel himself blushing. 

_ have i right to kiss you? / you know i’ll always miss you / i’ve loved you from the very start _

Dallas sits next to him on the bed and the mattress dips under his weight. 

“Dal, I-”

“Don’t say it, Johnny.”

Johnny blinks and pulls back like he’s been slapped, his eyebrows going together. “You don’t even know what I was gonna say,” he breathes. 

Dallas hums and looks over at him, seems to search his face for a tell. “Do too,” he says, his voice a shade hushed. “You were gonna say somethin’ about-about…” He exhales from his nose, tries again, “How you ain’t goin’ with girls ‘cause you’d rather go with me. Or shoot, maybe Pony. You two are thick as thieves.” 

Johnny blushes all the way to his ears, can feel the prickling of tears. He can’t tell if Dally is going to blow up at him or not, coaxing him out all calm just so he can throw him down the stairs and call him a fruit. Even with all this fear inside him, Johnny can’t imagine him. Dallas would leap in front of a train before he ever laid a finger on Johnny. 

“You gonna say somethin’?”

“It’s you,” johnny whispers after a moment, chin dipped to his chest.

“Yeah?” Dallas is looking down and away too, picking at the dirt under his nails. 

“Yeah.” Johnny feels his voice is going to break if he says one word more, his bottom lip trembling pathetically. He’s fit to have a heart attack, so afraid and caught off guard. 

Dally “huh”s like it’s funny and asks, “You gonna say it like you mean it?”

Johnny’s heart clenches up and he wants to belt Dally one, mash his small fists up to his chest, and ask him what’s so funny about this whole thing. Instead, he says softly, voice trembling, “I like you, Dal.” 

“The way gals like Soda?” 

Johnny groans and hiccups a sob, covers his face with his hands and wrenches out, “Yes…!”

A hand touches his back gently and Dallas asks, “Hey, now, what’re ya cryin’ for? I never said I didn’t like you back, did I?” 

It takes a moment for Johnny to process what’s being said to him and even once he’s repeated it in his head 3 times, he sits there all hunched over, tears running down his cheeks like a fool because he’s so damn relieved and so damned confused. “Dally…,” he croaks. 

“Johnnycake…” Dallas keeps rubbing up and down his back, best attempt at consoling him. “Quit it now. What’s the use in cryin’?” If it were anyone beside Johnny, Dallas would have gotten up and curtly excused himself, headed downstairs, poured himself a nice tall drink. He can’t stand crying the same way he can’t stand little kids or yapping broads. 

Johnny finally looks up and he’s glad his nose isn’t leaking, just his eyes. Snotting all over Dally right now would be mortifying. He hiccups again. He says, “I thought you’d hate me for it.” 

“I think… there’s a lot of things you ain’t noticed about the world yet.” 

Johnny gives him a look and Dallas barks a laugh, shakes his head. 

He says, “You and Pony always catch me up here with chicks, but it’s not always with them, you dig?” 

Johnny digs, but he’s so shocked, it feels like he’s dreaming. He can’t really imagine Dallas with a man, but he also can’t imagine someone getting away with calling him a slur. Call Dallas Winston a hood too harsh, let alone a fag, and you’ll wind up with 4 teeth in the gutter. 

Dally puts a hand to his face, thumbs away a tear as it spirals down Johnny’s cheek, and Johnny’s heart switches from the awful sinking feeling to that wonderful thrumming you get when you’re around someone you really love. He knows Dallas wouldn’t treat anyone else on earth this sweet. 

Johnny’s not sure who starts leaning in first, but somehow the gap between them closes and their lips brush, a hesitant, shy bump at first, before Dallas is tilting his mouth down fully, hand still cupping Johnny’s face. Dally’s pulling at him like he can’t seem to get close enough, so Johnny edges forward, thigh to thigh. 

When the kiss breaks and they’re forehead to forehead, Johnny whispers, “Wow…,” the way he might if he saw a real tuff car with whitewalls and a new gleaming paint job. 

Dallas snickers. 

“Are we- Do we gotta tell the gang?” 

“They’ll figure it out on their own.” Dallas gets up and goes into the bathroom, comes back with a roll of toilet paper which he passes to Johnny to dry his eyes. “‘Sides, I have a feelin’ pretty boy Soda and ole Steve might be gettin’ up to their own thing some days.” 

Johnny’s eyebrows go up to his hairline. “Man…,” he whispers. 

“You had the right idea the whole time. Girls just complicate a gang too much.” Dallas sits back down on the bed as the radio switches over to the Rooftop Singers, and he swings an arm around Johnny, pulls him to his chest in that rough yet affectionate way all the guys do. 

After a moment of being held, Johnny asks, “You think Buck is gonna…?”

“He says a word to you, I’ll bust his fuckin’ head in.” 

It seems like there aren’t anymore questions about it: Dallas has made things clear enough. It’s late, at least 10 by Johnny’s guess, and Dally shifts Johnny out of his lap, turns off the lights and puts the radio to a hum. They crawl into bed together, stripped down to their underwear and nothing else, like they have a hundred times before, two hoods sharing a space because that’s how things are, but this time, they touch. They pull in close and Johnny breathes in Dally’s smell: cigarettes and hay and some harsh cologne that starting to fade. 

It’s all that he imagined, with no fear chasing him this time. 

**Author's Note:**

> like i said, i haven't read the book in years this was meant to be a oneshot drabble of under 2k words but i got carried away and here we are
> 
> i might make this a series i dont know yet 
> 
> feedback and kudos appreciated thank you for reading!


End file.
